First Amendment: bedrock of freedom

By The Daily News

Published: Friday, September 20, 2013 at 08:25 PM.

“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Did you worship this week at the place of your choice? In a church, synagogue, or storefront?

“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Did you worship this week at the place of your choice? In a church, synagogue, or storefront?

Ever been to a political rally?

Said what you thought about your taxes?

Criticized the government on Facebook?

If you have ever done any of these without fear of government retaliation, you can thank the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Tuesday is First Amendment Day, 24 hours most likely to pass without much thought of the most basic personal freedoms we enjoy in America — freedoms now jeopardized by events of the times in which we live.

Oh, but were that not true! For all that it means for Americans, First Amendment Day well could be celebrated with the excitement and hoopla of the Fourth of July!

Instead, today’s “Land of the Free” is in danger of becoming less free.

Today’s cavalier attitude about government limitations on a person’s liberty was not shared by our country’s Founders. Fresh in their minds, those centuries ago when they debated and fashioned the Constitution, were the ways in which their civil rights had been violated by the British. Will Americans now freely give up their freedom, not to a foreign power, but to their own government?

To experience the absence of freedom is when one appreciates freedom most. To protect it — for themselves and their posterity is what the Founders did, in writing, with the First Amendment. Tyranny was their great fear and they wanted an official document to accompany the Constitution to, as Richard Henry Lee of Virginia said so well, protect “those essential rights of mankind without which liberty cannot exist.”

Today’s take-it-for-granted regard for freedom, along with the fear generated by terrorist acts, puts Americans in danger of losing rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Shortly after the Boston bombings last spring, a survey conducted by the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University showed that a third of Americans believe the First Amendment goes too far.

From a report on the survey’s findings:

“The jump in the percentage of individuals who think the First Amendment goes too far represents Americans’ willingness to give up their rights and freedoms in return for greater security when they feel threatened. An even greater increase in willingness to trade freedom for security occurred after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.”

The Founders would be stunned that what they risked their lives for — for what so many gave their lives for — would be abandoned, returned to a central government in exchange for a false notion that safety could be guaranteed.

To quote another one of our country’s best-known Founders, Ben Franklin: